Certain retail fueling environments have incorporated wireless fidelity (“Wi-Fi”) technology to enable devices within the fueling environments to communicate. A Wi-Fi access point is installed in a central location within the fueling environment, and each device is equipped with a Wi-Fi network adapter configured to communicate with the Wi-Fi access point. The Wi-Fi network adapter transmits data from the associated device to the Wi-Fi access point, which routes the data to the intended recipient device. Incorporating a Wi-Fi access point and network adapters configured to communicate with the access point into a fueling environment can incur a relatively substantial cost depending on the number of devices in the environment configured to communicate wirelessly. Additionally, not all devices in the fueling environment may be configured to communicate with a Wi-Fi network adapter.
Moreover, Wi-Fi communications are susceptible to interference and degradation caused by the surrounding environment or objects located or positioned within the environment. For instance, objects consisting of substantial amounts of liquid and/or metal can interfere with or even absorb the radio signals transmitted by the Wi-Fi devices. As a result, transmissions from the Wi-Fi network adapters may fail to reach the Wi-Fi access point and/or the intended recipient of the data. That is, a Wi-Fi network adapter and the associated access point are unable to communicate if the path between the two becomes interrupted.
A repeater may be positioned to receive and “repeat” data transmitted by a Wi-Fi network adapter to the access point. In such a scenario, the Wi-Fi network adapter is configured to communicate directly with the repeater, which is configured to communicate directly with the access point. However, the Wi-Fi communications of the system remain susceptible to the interference, degradation, and failure described above. For instance, if either of the paths between the adapter and the repeater or between the repeater and the access point is interrupted, the device is unable to communicate with the intended recipient.